{"id":11,"date":"2012-03-13T19:09:09","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T19:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=11"},"modified":"2012-03-13T19:09:09","modified_gmt":"2012-03-13T19:09:09","slug":"two-guys-and-their-guitars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=11","title":{"rendered":"Two Guys and Their Guitars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PABST THEATER, MILWAUKEE \u2014 So how\u2019s this for folking it up? Shortly after writing the above posting, I saw Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt sitting on a stage with nothing but their two acoustic guitars and a little table between them with some water bottles \u2014 like sitting out on your front porch. This was the folk-music mode in essence. At first, Hiatt mumbled his words and Lovett fumbled his first song, stopping after four lines and saying, \u201cUh, John, maybe I should leave the singing to you.\u201d But he gathered himself and started singing a completely different song.
\nSo it went, each rummaging around for the next song to sing, and audience folks in the Pabst Theater talking to them randomly and they\u2019d always politely respond. That got out of hand late in the concert when about 40 different requests came raining down on them almost simultaneously. That\u2019s what happens when you cram 800 people onto your front porch. But they were both affable, humorous and charming. I think Lovett\u2019s big hair presses down on his brain too much \u2014 he\u2019s a little odd but you can almost imagine how he charmed Julia Roberts into marrying him, at least until he got his haircut and the pressure eased and he temporarily lost his quirky powers, like a goofus Sampson.
\nBut he\u2019s very smart and insightful and always has an aw-shucks ballad to sing. Both men did find their grooves and performed superbly \u2014 Hiatt especially traveled deep into his blues-infused story-songs, often pulling a menagerie of moods along with him: \u201cI never felt so free, just my dog and me\u2026how many times can one dog pee?\u201d
\nSo after he sang \u201cAll The Way Under\u201d (from his marvelous recent alum Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns), Lovett said, \u201cSo we want to know, how low have you really gotten?\u201d Hiatt chuckled and said \u201cI\u2019m still working on that.\u201d Lovett is still workin\u2019 on romance, sort of. He mooed out a courting ballad, written after meeting a beautiful lunch-counter waitress who only had eyes for his buddy. The sorry little kicker: \u201cNow I\u2019m stuck with this song\/and I\u2019ll never be able to use it.\u201d For a moment you believed either he was never close to lovely Julia\u2019s league, or that or maybe any of us romantic schlubs might just have a shot at the heart\u2019s glory \u2014 if our timing were just right.
\nThroughout the show, Lovett\u2019s singing remained in its usual expressively hovering register, whereas Hiatt\u2019s ditch-diggin\u2019 voice almost struck its own wormy coffin and then soared with ravaged wails that almost pierced the crying sky bluesmen sing about. I felt sorry for the five (!) different people I\u2019d asked to come along who couldn\u2019t make it (Is it my e-odorant? My third eye?) I had won two tickets from WUWM radio. Well, me and my empty red seat, we soaked up a heapin\u2019 helpin\u2019 of folk-country-blues soul. So satisfied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PABST THEATER, MILWAUKEE \u2014 So how\u2019s this for folking it up? Shortly after writing the above posting, I saw Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt sitting on a stage with nothing but their two acoustic guitars and a little table between … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-b","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}